United Kingdom General Election: July 4, 2024

[Flyersfan232]

Damn Reform is really surging in the polls. I guess bringing back Farage worked out, and with each day we inch closer to recreating the 1993 Canadian election...

It looks like Reform's latest surge is coming at the expense of both Labour and Tories in roughly equal measure, although their previous gains came from Tories. Reform's nominally strongest seats are all Labour because of the Boris-Farage pact in 2019, so we can't really use universal swing. But is there data on where exactly their surge is coming from? Is it more a case of traditional Tory voters deserting them for Reform, or is there also an element of red wall populism contributing to this?

Reform is getting votes only from Conservative Leave voters.

Here is an example from Yougov:

January 2020 Leave vote:

CON 76
LAB 13
REF 4
LD 2
GRN 1

Now:

REF 36  +32
CON 31 -45
LAB 21  +8
LD 7 +5
GRN 3 +2

Jan.2020 Remain vote:

LAB 43
CON 26
LD 16
GRN 8
REF 0

Now:

LAB 52 +9
LD 19 +3
CON 11 -15
GRN 10 +2
REF 3 +3

Both a majority of Conservative Remainers and Leavers left them:  Con Leavers mostly Reform, Con Remainers mostly Labour.

This also gives you an idea in which seats Reform and the LD might win

how are the remain voters voting reform

[Skye]

Just rubbing salt in the wound at this point 😬

https://twitter.com/politlcsuk/status/1800668636606312481?s=46&t=UeA4vI7CVeO...

[GM Team Member and Acting PPT WB]

Man, I thought self-sabotaging in NCT was unrealistic

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Man, I thought self-sabotaging in NCT was unrealistic

If I had a million pounds for every bad decision Sunak made or will make in this campaign then I would have enough money to buy a California mansion for every Tory MP who likely lost because of him to join him there if they wanted to do so.

[Compuzled_One]

Man, I thought self-sabotaging in NCT was unrealistic

If I had a million pounds for every bad decision Sunak made or will make in this campaign then I would have enough money to buy a California mansion for every Tory MP who likely lost because of him to join him there if they wanted to do so.

That sounds like a fun sitcom.

[DistingFlyer]

Damn Reform is really surging in the polls. I guess bringing back Farage worked out, and with each day we inch closer to recreating the 1993 Canadian election...

David McLaughlin's Poisoned Chalice has made good re-reading lately.

[RBH]

adding two more constituencies to my list of places where the WPGB is using "For Britain, For Gaza" on the ballot: Cheadle and Hornsey & Friern Barnet.

At least the Gallowayites respected the right of the Speaker to be left alone (more likely, they don't have anybody in Chorley).

My favorite "smaller party running vs the Speaker" race is the time the Socialist Labour candidate got an unusually high percentage from people who maybe saw the word "Labour" and thought "yeah, that's the pick"

[Compuzled_One]

Are there gonna be any more MRP polls this election season (especially after the ITV debate), or is the three we got about it?

[Blair]

It is telling the Conservatives junked and ducked doing a manifesto promise on inheritance tax- this would have been very popular with their activists, the right wing press and some of their voters. It is a tax that always leads to an extremely ideological debate.

The reason why they didn’t go ahead with changing it is partly that when they trailed it last year Labour quite viciously attacked them over it.

I actually think it was a mistake for the Tories not to include it- people would notice it much more than that yet another national insurance tax cut of £50 which gets swallowed up by your private dentist bill!

[beesley]

Are there gonna be any more MRP polls this election season (especially after the ITV debate), or is the three we got about it?

I presume each of the three pollsters will provide one more update during the campaign, but no more than that.

[Pericles]

I'm not sure if we saw this, but Starmer made a bizzare attack that the Tory manifesto is a 'Corbyn-style manifesto' , saying of it that "anything you want can go in, none of it is costed". It's quite an astute observation though, it's a complete role reversal from 2019.

[Torrain]

Yeah - this feels like an observation you get a surrogate or former Tory ally to make. No leg to stand on if you were in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet.

If this was a competitive election, rather than a six-week punishment beating for the Conservatives, we’d probably have entered a “Starmer can’t be trusted” media cycle. Complete with Johnson waffling about Caesar and Brutus or something.

[afleitch]

If you want the TLDR, Gina Davidson (LBC's Scottish correspondent) has a fairly succinct take, that pretty much sums up my feelings on the evening:
https://twitter.com/ginadavidsonlbc/status/1800620326495072704

I think the moderation was stellar. I think the drifting into non-reserved matters was unfortunate but also moderated well. I think some of those who fielded the questions enjoyed the sound of their own voice (Limmy's 'Yes or No' sketch once again)

The audience were relatively non responsive and engaging. Some very heavy clappers but it was obvious it wasn't in response to the response but to the speaker. My own take is that Douglas Ross was relatively ignored rather than actively engaged with.

Sarwar's performance to me, with all my biases was very much 'press play', 'next track' which going into 2026 gives me some hope he will easily become unstuck. I think Swinney is naturally monotone in response when attacked which makes some of the shouting fall flat; you could see that shift in the latter half of the debate as things got much calmer.

[afleitch]

Sticking with Scotland, Opinium yesterday had Labour ahead by 1 and IPSOS today a tie. Different methodologies will give different results but the difference is noticeable in Scotland and may give a significant polling error if there's no convergence towards the end of the campaign.

The more recent polls do agree with the MRPs which collectively were showing a tie once constituency voting intention was extrapolated nationally. We'll need to see if they shift or move.

Outside of election polling, Scottish polling has tended to be reactive; polls commissioned in response to events and disproportionately by newspapers or consultancy firms and lacking regular scheduled polling (other than Redfield & Wilton) Since comparisons are from polls either a month before, or from before 2024 it's hard to quantify a trend until much later than you do in GB wide polling.

So the narrative of campaign polling at the start may have been driven by what pollsters reported first. YouGov oddly has not yet dropped a campaign poll.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Pressed to give an example of something that he grew up without, Sunak said: “There’ll be all sorts of things that I would’ve wanted as a kid that I couldn’t have. Famously, Sky TV, so that was something that we never had growing up actually.”

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/politlcsuk/status/1800842478901137702

[Torrain]

Chance of a polling error of some sort in Scotland does seem high, given the divergence between different firms (Lab anywhere from 35-40%, SNP 29-36%, Tory 12-18%).

Worth noting on Ipsos - they tend to be more bullish on the SNP than other pollsters and the tie they record is the first time the SNP haven’t lead with them this parliament:
https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1800861223841583202
A tie isn’t *great* for Labour - closing a seven point gap, on the other hand…

[TheTide]

Chance of a polling error of some sort in Scotland does seem high, given the divergence between different firms (Lab anywhere from 35-40%, SNP 29-36%, Tory 12-18%).

Worth noting on Ipsos - they tend to be more bullish on the SNP than other pollsters and the tie they record is the first time the SNP haven’t lead with them this parliament:
https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1800861223841583202
A tie isn’t *great* for Labour - closing a seven point gap, on the other hand…

The Tory vote is down by more than the SNP vote compared to 2019. On such figures it would be almost certain to fall more in the seats they hold or were close in in 2019, given that there's a lot of seats in which there isn't enough 'room' for it to fall as much as 12%. It wouldn't rule out some holds or even gains on low vote shares and several way splits.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

https://twitter.com/andrewlearmonth/status/1800477691185152499

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Just rubbing salt in the wound at this point 😬

https://twitter.com/politlcsuk/status/1800668636606312481?s=46&t=UeA4vI7CVeO...

It's fascinating that they seem to have decided "f**k D-Day" is something worth highlighting. Is Sunak trying to collect the insurance money on CCHQ?!

[rob in cal]

Any sense on what is the bare minimum of total national vote support that would likely yield a Labour majority? With the emergence of Reform adding a bunch of wasted votes, perhaps the low 30s?

[afleitch]

Any sense on what is the bare minimum of total national vote support that would likely yield a Labour majority? With the emergence of Reform adding a bunch of wasted votes, perhaps the low 30s?

Without the collapse of one of the two governing parties, recent history suggests 36 to 37%. In both cases the opposition was between 3 and 7 points behind.

If the Tories, Lib Dems and Reform got 20% each, that would put Labour on about 30-32% and they would still get a majority.

[The Mikado]

Pressed to give an example of something that he grew up without, Sunak said: “There’ll be all sorts of things that I would’ve wanted as a kid that I couldn’t have. Famously, Sky TV, so that was something that we never had growing up actually.”

Did he turn the question into blatant pandering to Sky?

[Storr]

Here's a link if anyone wants to read the 80 page "The Conservative and Unionist Party
Manifesto 2024"

In sum: we'll lower your taxes

[MABA 2020]

Any sense on what is the bare minimum of total national vote support that would likely yield a Labour majority? With the emergence of Reform adding a bunch of wasted votes, perhaps the low 30s?

Without the collapse of one of the two governing parties, recent history suggests 36 to 37%. In both cases the opposition was between 3 and 7 points behind.

If the Tories, Lib Dems and Reform got 20% each, that would put Labour on about 30-32% and they would still get a majority.

If Labour get a big majority from such a low percentage, it would only highlight the absurdity of FPTP